LCA, EPDs and Digital Product Passports: Where Your Environmental Data Fits

Written by Poul Lindqvist

Guest article by Marion Rouzeaud, founder of DiPPa. Originally published on dippa.eu.

Digital Product Passports are often discussed through the technology required to make product information accessible: identifiers, data carriers, interoperability and data systems. But the information a passport makes available has to be generated somewhere first.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one important example. For decades, companies have used LCA to assess the environmental impacts of products across their life cycle. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) have provided a standardised way of communicating LCA-based environmental information. Both generate valuable product information, but each is developed for a defined product system, purpose and point in time.

The Digital Product Passport (DPP) introduces a different information model. Under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), a DPP is a set of data specific to a product, containing the information specified in the applicable delegated act and accessible electronically through a data carrier. The regulation also requires DPP data to be accurate, complete and up to date.

This creates an opportunity to look at LCA and EPD not as separate sustainability documents, but as part of a wider product information ecosystem. Environmental evidence can become connected with other product data and stay accessible alongside the product as it moves through its lifecycle.

How is LCA used to build environmental evidence around a product?

LCA is sometimes associated mainly with carbon footprinting, but its environmental scope is broader. The European Commission describes LCA, standardised through ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, as a method for evaluating environmental impacts across the life cycle of a product or service, from raw material extraction through production and use to end-of-life.

An LCA generally includes Goal and Scope definition, Life Cycle Inventory, Life Cycle Impact Assessment and Interpretation. Its results depend on the product system and the methodological choices made, including system boundaries, datasets and assumptions. The environmental figures communicated at the end therefore sit on top of a much larger body of product, process and supply-chain data.

An EPD adds another layer. Based on LCA, an EPD declares environmental information according to applicable standards, Product Category Rules (PCRs), programme requirements and verification processes. It turns an environmental assessment into a structured declaration that can be communicated externally.

Neither LCA nor EPD should simply be described as "static data". An LCA can be updated when a product, process, dataset or study purpose changes, and an EPD follows its own validity and update rules. But each represents an assessment or declaration built around a defined product system and context. That is different from maintaining information continuously alongside the identity and lifecycle of a product.

This is where our work at Environmental Impacts Academy sits. In our Hands-on LCA training, participants carry out an ISO-compliant LCA on a real product. Our EPD Practitioner Training builds on that: Standards and PCR interpretation, documentation, creating a real-life EPD and preparing it for third-party verification.

What changes with a Digital Product Passport?

The DPP does not replace LCA or EPD. Nor does it mean every product will need either one. Under the ESPR, detailed DPP information requirements are set through product-specific delegated acts, so environmental information is one possible part of a wider product dataset, depending on the product.

Other information comes from very different sources. Product Lifecycle Management and engineering systems provide specifications and component structures. Bills of materials and supplier declarations provide material information. ERP, procurement and supply-chain systems hold sourcing and production data. Compliance processes generate certificates and technical documentation, while service, repair, refurbishment and end-of-life activities generate information later in the product's life.

So the DPP is less about creating a new category of data than about connecting relevant information to the product. Environmental information from an LCA or EPD can sit alongside technical, compliance, material, supply-chain or circularity information, with access set by the applicable rules. In fact, an LCA or EPD already requires a lot of data on materials, manufacturing processes, product use and durability, and the most likely recycling or waste scenario. As a by-product of LCA or EPD work, much of the information relevant to a DPP is already uncovered.

A DPP also changes the time dimension of product information. Some data, such as basic product characteristics, stays relatively stable. Other information may be updated as the product moves through its lifecycle: a repair, component replacement or refurbishment can create new information linked to the product, where the DPP architecture and rules allow it.

This does not mean every DPP becomes a live digital twin streaming real-time data. The real shift is from product information scattered across separate assessments, declarations, databases and documents towards a product-linked record that brings together both stable and updateable information.

Why is more than environmental data needed for a full product picture?

LCA shows how much knowledge can sit behind what eventually appears as a simple environmental indicator. A carbon footprint depends on product and process data, supplier information, datasets, system boundaries and methodological decisions. Making the final number digitally accessible does not remove the need to understand that context.

The same applies to other information entering a DPP. A recycled-content figure needs evidence behind it. A durability claim needs testing or another sound basis. A repairability indicator depends on defined criteria. A material record has to stay connected to the right product or component. Digitalisation makes information easier to access and exchange, but it does not automatically make the underlying evidence reliable.

The opportunity is to connect information without disconnecting it from its meaning. LCA and EPD contribute environmental evidence; engineering, supply-chain, compliance and lifecycle systems contribute the rest. The DPP provides the product-specific link between them.

Seen this way, the move to DPPs is not a move from "no data" to "data". Companies already generate large amounts of product information. It is a move towards information that is more structured, connected, accessible and, where relevant, updated throughout the product's life.

What this means if you do LCA work

A note from the Environmental Impacts Academy team.

  • Document the "why" behind your numbers. System boundaries, datasets and assumptions are what keep a footprint meaningful once it shows up in a passport, next to data from other systems.

  • Treat your inventory as product data. The materials, processes, use scenarios and end-of-life data you collect for an LCA are often exactly what a DPP needs. Structure them so they can be reused, not just reported.

  • Watch your sector's delegated act. DPP requirements are set product group by product group, so environmental data won't be mandatory everywhere, and the indicators required will differ.

How can we build the skills for getting the data?

This transition also creates an education challenge. Organisations need people who understand how the information is generated, and people who understand why it matters and how it can be used.

Our two organisations come at this from opposite ends. At Environmental Impacts Academy, we build the hands-on skills to produce and interpret environmental evidence through LCA and EPD. Marion's DiPPa™ Framework starts from the product and the DPP: Illumination (identifying what matters), Measurement (determining the evidence required) and Adaptation (exploring what can change as a result).

Environmental evidence forms one part of the Measurement phase, alongside information on materials, product performance, compliance, supply chains, repairability and circularity. The goal is not to treat LCA as the environmental section of every passport. It is to understand when environmental evidence is relevant, how robust it is, and how it connects with the other information the product needs.

Together, these perspectives point to a broader requirement for DPP readiness. Technology can connect the information, but organisations still need the methods and skills to generate credible data, understand what sits behind it, and decide how it should support choices across the product lifecycle.

Where to go next

References

This article was first published by Marion Rouzeaud on dippa.eu and is republished here with permission.


Poul Lindqvist
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